Wakefield-born Ismail Dawood led from the front with a real captain's innings as Bradford-Leeds Universities' Centre of Excellence took the bulk of the honours against Yorkshire at Bradford Park Avenue yesterday.

Dawood, a graduate of the Yorkshire Academy and now a mature student at Leeds Metropolitan University, showed great powers of concentration and no little skill in batting for 214 minutes while making a landmark 125 with 16 fours and a six.

It was the first century by a Bradford-Leeds player since the Centre of Excellence started up in 2001 and it guided them to their highest score against first-class opposition of 241.

That gave Yorkshire a lead of 168 and they chose not to enforce the follow-on. It would have been harsh on their young opponents if they had because the Centre were two batsmen short through Tabassum Bhatti and Bilal Ijaz both having sustained badly dislocated fingers the previous day which ended their involvement in the match.

Dawood, who had spells as a wicketkeeper-batsman with Northamptonshire, Worcester-shire and Glamorgan after leaving Yorkshire, made his native county toil as he rescued his side from 54-4.

He added 111 for the fifth wicket with former Yorkshire paceman Chris Elstub, who looked disappointed to be given out caught down the legside by Simon Guy for 23, and then 61 for the sixth wicket with Jon Siddall.

Vic Craven's direct throw on the stumps ran out Siddall for 22 and Dawood's battling effort closed with an edge to Guy which brought Pieter Swanepoel his fourth wicket and final figures of 4-50 from 15 overs.

Yorkshire used six bowlers but once again Gavin Hamilton did not feel sufficiently confident to bowl and his first team place in future may depend upon whether he merits it solely as a batsman.

Head coach Kevin Sharp said: "Gavin is batting really well at the moment and there is a chance he may be selected because we feel he can score a lot of runs. It could be that if he plays as a batsman his problems with the ball may suddenly come to an end."

Craven and Craig White opened for Yorkshire and both fell in an excellent six-over spell from Elstub, who trapped White lbw and had Craven cutting into his stumps with the score on 28.

Guy and Matthew Wood avoided any embarrassment with an unbroken stand of 112, Guy's 55 probably cementing his place in Yorkshire's side for their National League game against Kent at Tunbridge Wells on Sunday.

Wood straight drove the last ball of the day for six and he also had ten other boundaries in his 63 while Guy hit six fours.

Updated: 09:51 Friday, June 06, 2003